The Crimson Skew Brings a Magical Journey to its Triumphant Conclusion
The Crimson Skew (Mapmakers Trilogy #3)
Hardcover $17.99
The Crimson Skew (Mapmakers Trilogy #3)
By S. E. Grove
Hardcover $17.99
If you know a young reader who is really smart, and who likes books of beautiful complexity with twists of world building that are truly astounding, S.E. Grove’s Mapmakers Trilogy is an excellent pick. This is especially true now that the third book, The Crimson Skew, has been released, because now there’s no more pesky waiting to find out what happens next!
If you know a young reader who is really smart, and who likes books of beautiful complexity with twists of world building that are truly astounding, S.E. Grove’s Mapmakers Trilogy is an excellent pick. This is especially true now that the third book, The Crimson Skew, has been released, because now there’s no more pesky waiting to find out what happens next!
The first book in the series, The Glass Sentence, introduced a strangely skewed version of our world, in which time has been fractured. A great disruption brought the past to some places, the future to others…and history ceased its linear progression. Sophia has grown up in a 19th century sort of United States (but with major differences), and she’s accustomed to a world where crossing a country’s boarders means crossing into a different era. But she’s never grown accustomed to her cartographer parents’ absence—they left on a mapmaking journey and never returned.
Sophia wants to find them, and so she’s determined to follow in their footsteps as a mapmaker. But she’s not left in peace to study the strange and magical maps of the disrupted world. Instead, when her uncle is kidnapped, Sophia sets off to follow a trail of cartographic riddles across a continent fraught with magic and danger. It’s a journey that will take her to the end of the known world and lead her to a map that might change everything once again. It’s a journey that brings new friends, adventures of all sorts, and wild flights of imagination to delight the fantasy reader along for the ride. And interspersed with Sophia’s story we see what is happening to her uncle, imprisoned by a woman with a time-shattered backstory of her own.
The Glass Sentence (Mapmakers Trilogy #1)
Hardcover $17.99
The Glass Sentence (Mapmakers Trilogy #1)
By S. E. Grove
Hardcover $17.99
And that’s just the first book. The second, The Golden Specific, sends Sophia after clues that might lead to her parents, across the ocean to a world of plagues, phantom hunters, witches, and travelers from the future in a twisted version of late medieval Europe. The third volume, The Crimson Skew, faces the seemingly impossible task of ending a juggernaut of a story filled with magic that is still very mysterious and filled by a rather large cast of characters who need their stories resolved.
And that’s just the first book. The second, The Golden Specific, sends Sophia after clues that might lead to her parents, across the ocean to a world of plagues, phantom hunters, witches, and travelers from the future in a twisted version of late medieval Europe. The third volume, The Crimson Skew, faces the seemingly impossible task of ending a juggernaut of a story filled with magic that is still very mysterious and filled by a rather large cast of characters who need their stories resolved.
By this point, Sophia is back in the Western Hemisphere, and the helter-skelter pace of her journey gets bumped up a notch. Her personal quest to find her parents now becomes a journey to end the war between the Colonial East Coast and the Indian Territories, that is tearing an already fractured continent apart. Magical powers, magical maps, a dragon, pirates, and villains keep the pages turning, while the friendships and love Sophia has found with unlikely characters along the way serve as an emotional anchor that keeps it all from becoming too much. As it turns out, there was no need to worry about whether all the threads of story could end in a way that made sense, because it all comes together in a triumphant conclusion (that leaves room for more).
The Golden Specific (Mapmakers Trilogy #2)
Hardcover $17.99
The Golden Specific (Mapmakers Trilogy #2)
By S. E. Grove
Hardcover $17.99
There is so much story here and so much to learn about this version of reality, that patience is required; but the rewards are great. Memorable scenes (and there are many) will keep on playing in the reader’s head. Though this is a middle grade book for kids in grades 5 and up, and it isn’t going to be for every middle grade fantasy fan. Give it to the kid who, like Sophia, daydreams of strange worlds…the thoughtful kid, who’s a fast and confident reader, who looks at reality slightly slant-wise. Fans of The Golden Compass, for instance, should enjoy it lots. Or give it older readers (even grown-ups!) who love the way the best fantasy books open new windows in the mind.
There is so much story here and so much to learn about this version of reality, that patience is required; but the rewards are great. Memorable scenes (and there are many) will keep on playing in the reader’s head. Though this is a middle grade book for kids in grades 5 and up, and it isn’t going to be for every middle grade fantasy fan. Give it to the kid who, like Sophia, daydreams of strange worlds…the thoughtful kid, who’s a fast and confident reader, who looks at reality slightly slant-wise. Fans of The Golden Compass, for instance, should enjoy it lots. Or give it older readers (even grown-ups!) who love the way the best fantasy books open new windows in the mind.